I've been covering the transportation industry for 20 years. Past publications include The Charlotte Observer, Miami Herald and Sacramento Bee. I also worked for U.S. Airways, writing internal publications and speeches for the company's executives. I'm a graduate of Wesleyan University and have a master's in journalism from Columbia University. Unlike most bloggers, I don't hate airlines.

The Transportation Security Administration has taken off the gloves and started to respond more aggressively to the constant barrage of criticism – as well it should.

Last week, in an opinion piece in the Rockland County Times, published in a close-in New York City suburb, TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein responded to a critical column by area resident Diane Dimond, a syndicated columnist.

”Perhaps the next time Diane and her family fly out of a New York-area airport to a fun vacation spot, they’ll look out the car window at the New York skyline minus the Twin Towers and remember some of the true facts about TSA and why it exists,” Farbstein wrote.

Dimond “criticized the very security measures that were designed to keep passengers safe —to help ensure that there is not another 9/11 in her back yard,” said Farbstein, who answered about a dozen criticisms, point-by-point. Among them: it is inconvenient, undignified and an invasion of your privacy to be forced to remove your shoes, jackets and belts, take off your belt and take your computer from its case. TSA agents “treat all of us like we’re new arrivals at a prison camp.” The lines are too long and some agents seem to stand around doing nothing.

While the criticisms are familiar, the aggressive response is new. In fact, the TSA responds to multiple daily attacks, most far less coherent than Dimond’s. Critics include travelers who make up stories; members of Congress who seek political gain and bloggers, tweeters and other self-promoters aware that the best way to be noticed and collect Internet hits is to express outrage. The outrage business, it must be said, is a growth business, thriving in the age of new media.

Last week, radio talk show host Dana Loesch tweeted about an incident at the Phoenix airport. Loesch claimed she was sexually molested after a sensor showed traces of explosives on her. She was upset that the incident took place in private: she had requested a public screening. Earlier,in June, Loesch and her husband were detained by the TSA in Providence, R.I., after he allegedly underwent intrusive screenings because sensors detected traces of explosives on him.

Perhaps we should conclude that TSA agents are engaged in a nationwide plot to harass the couple whenever possible. Or perhaps explosive pixie dust suddenly finds them whenever they head to the airport. Clearly, they are outliers among the 650 million people TSA screens annually. Last year, about one tenth of one percent of those filed complaints.

The truth is that, for all of the complaints, most U.S. travelers have a positive opinion of the TSA. According to a Gallup poll released in August, 54% of Americans think TSA is doing either an excellent or a good job of handling airport screening. Among Americans who have flown at least once in the past year, 57% have an excellent or good opinion of the agency. In other words, the more you see them, the better you like them.

Of course, TSA is not perfect. It employs 62,000 people, a few of whom have stolen from the luggage they are paid to inspect. The annual $8.1 billion budget seems high: the same work was done for far less by private firms before Sept. 11. The firms followed federal guidelines, which sadly did not prevent box cutters on airplanes. The TSA is very visible to millions of travelers, some of whom have had a bad day by the time they get to the airport. And of course the agency is overseen by a dysfunctional Congress, whose 535 members bring a love of the limelight, vastly differing agendas and an inability to compromise.

Probably the biggest problem is that, unfortunately, we really don’t know how much screening is enough and how much is too much. Eleven years later, that is something we are still learning.

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This is as unpersuasive as Farbstein’s emotional play. Anyone who travels outside the U.S. can compare the TSA to its counterparts and judge the value and performance–I doubt that many in the polling sample you cite had that basis of comparison. Also there is no second page of this post as indicated.

The TSA has done absolutely nothing to foil any terrorist act on American soil or in American skies. The next time a group or an individual with an agenda decides to wreak havoc on the American people, it’s going to happen, regardless of how many times I remove my belt and shoes at the airport. If anyone thinks he’s 100 percent safe in the friendly skies, he’s delusional. However, according to my estimates, I have a much higher probability of dying in a plane crash due to crew error than I do being blown out of the sky by a bomb or flown into a skyscraper. But, if people feel safer believing they’re going to be protected by a rag-tag group of high school dropouts with plastic badges and power trips, to each his own.

The DHS and TSA have a well-developed internal counter-culture that is out of step with the American main stream.

“Remember 9-11″ and “It’s SSI” are thought-terminatinclichéses that work well within the TSA’s increasingly insular world, but fall flat on mainstream Americans. If the TSA really wants to persuade main stream America to tolerate their lunacy, they’re going to have to stop using the same terms on the public that work so well on their thoroughly indocrinated employees.

Americans have seen extremist movements and cults before. Most of us have enough common sense not to drink the kool aid. The TSA will have to reform or go the way of other short-lived fascist movements. In the meantime, it would be wise if someone with a bit of common sense was hired to interface between the TSAs mindless minions and the general public.

The DHS and TSA have a well-developed internal counter-culture that is out of step with the American main stream.

“Remember 9-11″ and “It’s SSI” are thought-terminating clichés that work well within the TSA’s increasingly insular world, but fall flat on mainstream Americans. If the TSA really wants to persuade main stream America to tolerate their lunacy, they’re going to have to stop using the same terms on the public that work so well on their thoroughly indocrinated employees.

Americans have seen extremist movements and cults before. Most of us have enough common sense not to drink the kool aid. The TSA will have to reform or go the way of other short-lived fascist movements. In the meantime, it would be wise if someone with a bit of common sense was hired to interface between the TSAs mindless minions and the general public.

It’s so heartening to see that a majority of flyer’s are happy to have their civil rights violated in the interests of safety. That the TSA has not stopped a single terrorist in their entire existence is of no concern to these cowering sheep. As this editorial makes clear, every police state needs its apologists.

“The poll, which targeted only self-identified frequent fliers, found 91 percent thought TSA is doing a fair or poor job with airport security screenings. Seventy-six percent thought the agency is ineffective at preventing acts of terrorism on an aircraft.”

If you want to know the face of the TSA, read the comments to the Farbstein article referenced above from a person who says he is a former TSA Supervisor. Those comments tell you all you need to know about the TSA.

1)We have learned all we need to know about airport security. It is called metal detectors, which worked fine for decades. Shoes on, liquids allowed, and good to go. All of this worked quite well (had nothing to do with 911) before, during, and after 911 up to 2010 when the illegal strip search scanners and sexual assault pat downs were rolled out by the GeTSApo.

2) 911 is a tragic case, but nothing about scanners or even metal detectors would change the events. Anyone could take a sharpened ballpoint pen or break a laptop screen to create a sharp object. They could then threaten passengers and crew. Heck, they could even “claim” to have a bomb. Regardless, the locked, reinforced cockpit doors and the “fight to the death” mentality of passengers make any hijacking in the US remote indeed. Other than that, nothing about 911 is different or prevented even under today’s legal and illegal security procedures.

3) Join http://fttusa.org to stay up to date on TSA news and our efforts to get legislators and others to reclaim the stolen 4th Amendment rights and stop the criminal unwanted genital assaults of the TSA.